By the way Republicans celebrated after the House voted last month to repeal and replace Obamacare, you’d think that the G.O.P. alternative—the American Health Care Act—had already been signed into law. Unfortunately for Paul Ryan, the bill still has to make its way through the Senate, where Republican leadership have already indicated they plan to start from scratch. Making matters worse, shortly after Ryan’s premature victory lap, the House got some more bad news: the Congressional Budget Office, which had not yet analyzed Ryan’s bill when he voted for it, finally released its updated analysis of the legislation, finding that the A.H.C.A. would result in some 23 million more uninsured people by 2026, relative to current law.

That number means something in Washington. The C.B.O. remains widely respected as a nonpartisan federal agency, established by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 in order to score legislation. And it’s mostly good at its job: in March 2017, a report by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business revealed that the general consensus among economists is that “the C.B.O. has historically issued credible forecasts of the effects of both Democratic and Republican legislative proposals.” Of course, the C.B.O. also bases its forecasts on numbers and math. And numbers and math are not much welcome in the Trump White House, especially when they conflict with Donald Trump’s preferred reality. So when the C.B.O. produced a result that White House Office of Management Director Mick Mulvaney didn’t like, he decided, naturally, to declare it a left-wing hack organization that should be immediately disbanded.

“At some point, you’ve got to ask yourself, has the day of the C.B.O. come and gone?” Mulvaney said in an interview this week with the Washington Examiner. “How much power do we give to the C.B.O. under the 1974 Budget Act? We're hearing now that the person in charge of the Affordable Health Care Act methodology is an alum of the Hillarycare program in the 1990s who was brought in by Democrats to score the A.C.A.” (As New York’s Jonathan Chaitpoints out, not only did “the C.B.O.’s 2010 forecast of the A.C.A. prove highly accurate,” but the group “dealt a serious and possibly even fatal blow to Bill Clinton's health care plans in 1993.”)

What does Mulvaney propose replacing the agency with? A beautiful melange of forecasts by partisan think tanks, plus the White House’s own forecast, all brought before Congress, which can then choose which one it likes best.

“I would do my own studies here at O.M.B. as to what the cost and benefits of that reg would be,” he said. “And other folks would do their studies from the outside. And those would come with their natural biases. The Heritage Foundation comes in and says it’s going to cost a lot. Brookings comes in or the Center for American Progress says the benefits would be great. You and I and other lawmakers can sit down and say, ‘O.K., we think that this is where it is, and we'll make our decisions based upon that.’”

Mulvaney went on to further underscore the point: “I wouldn't take what’s in the budget as indicative of what our proposals are.” What? Does Mulvaney know what the point of a budget proposal is, or does he just not care? As Chait notes, “Of course a budget is indicative of what their proposals are. That’s what a budget is.” But in Mulvaney’s mind, it makes total sense to release a budget, pat yourselves on the back for eliminating the deficit—based on assumptions that apparently don’t actually mean anything—and then say, hey, who knows what the real budget will actually entail, this was just for show. And then propose we get rid of the agency that actually does care about facts and figures, because it can’t be trusted. Sounds like a great idea.

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On Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the 2016 Paris climate accord, as he was widely expected to do. To give you an idea of just how unpopular this decision was, the various parties begging him not to pull out of the agreement included corporate giants like ExxonMobil, General Electric, and Morgan Stanley; former oil executive turned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson;Silicon Valley buddy Elon Musk; and, seemingly, Trump’s favorite aide Gary Cohn, who told reporters in Brussels last Friday that coal—an industry Trump has pledged to revive in part by trashing the Paris accord—“doesn't even make that much sense anymore.” Goldman Sachs C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein even fired up his Twitter account, which had been dormant since he joined in June 2011, six years ago, in order to take Trump to task.

After failing to realize a litany of campaign promises—The Wall! The travel ban! Burning NAFTA to the ground!—pulling out of the climate pact was an easy way to put some points on the board. Still, it’s not clear what withdrawing from the Paris accord really accomplishes, aside from jamming a finger in the world’s eye. Numerous corporate executives—the sorts of men (they are almost entirely men) who one would expect President C.E.O. to understand—have already stated publicly that they’re not going to start polluting now, just because Trump made an offensive symbolic gesture to allow companies to treat the planet like a urinal.

The U.S. leaving the Paris agreement is “not going to change one thing that we do regarding energy efficiency,” General Electric C.E.O. Jeffrey Immelt said in May. “And I think all business is going to feel the same way.” Ford Motor Co. has affirmedits commitment to investing in technology that “makes its vehicles emit less carbon dioxide, including shorter-term moves to improve the efficiency of the internal combustion engine, and longer-term plans to develop affordable fuel cells and enhanced batteries to create electric vehicles that can travel longer,” with many of its peers in the auto industry toeing the same line. American Electric Power Co. C.E.O. Nick Akins has said his utility company has been shifting the balance to solar, wind, and power because customers prefer that and also, of course, because it’s getting increasingly cheap. Companies like Exxon have publicly pushed for a carbon tax, which would at least give corporate America some semblance of regulatory stability.

Unsurprisingly, groups like the National Mining Association, which counts coal producers like Arch Coal and Peabody Energy among its members, have told Trump they support withdrawing from the accord. But as an analysis by the Financial Times suggests, leaving the agreement actually risks more jobs than it could ever hope to save, since nearly three times as many people in the U.S. now work in the renewable-energy industry as in the coal industry.

Of course, today’s decision should be taken with a giant grain of salt. As Bloomberg points out, “the announcement only prolongs uncertainty over the U.S. role in an agreement among almost 200 nations to address global warming.” The withdrawal process, if seen through, will take until November 2020, meaning the man who has the attention span of a gnat and is easily swayed by the arguments of whoever is in front of him at any given moment, has plenty of time to change his mind.

Health and Human Services Secretary has a thing for pushing legislation that could greatly help his stock holdings

Back in January, or in what Trump years feels like three decades ago, Representative Tom Price's nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services was almost derailed by revelations that the Georgia congressman had purchased between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of stock in a medical device company called Zimmer Biomet while simultaneously working on legislation that would increase its profits. (Apropos of nothing, Zimmer Biomet reportedly donated money to Price’s re-election campaign.) In addition, Price’s purchase of thousands of dollars worth of shares of an Australian biomedical company, Innate Immunotherapeutics Inc.—which was followed by a larger purchase after a congressional trip to Sydney, as well as an effort by Price to “push through legislation that expedites the F.D.A.’s approval process”—also raised eyebrows. And now, a new report by ProPublica reveals a third instance in which Price just happened to buy shares of a company and then, totally coincidentally, used his role as a U.S. lawmaker to try to give those shares a little love.

In the spring before the 2016 presidential election, the Obama administration’s 12-nation trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or T.P.P., was still alive. Negotiators worked on details as Congress considered whether to ratify the pact.

The Australian government was getting in the way of one change demanded by U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Makers of cutting-edge biological drugs wanted to have data from their clinical trials protected from competitors for 12 years, as they are under U.S. law—not the roughly five years permitted under the T.P.P. Australian officials insisted that an extension would deprive consumers of cheaper alternatives for too long. On April 5, 2016, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Canberra, Australia’s capital, for meetings with government officials on a broad range of subjects. Among those on the routine congressional trip was Representative Tom Price . . .

Three weeks before the trip, Price had purchased up to $90,000 worth of pharmaceutical stocks—trades that would come under scrutiny after his nomination to Trump’s Cabinet. In Canberra, Price and another Republican, Representative John Kline of Minnesota, pressured senior Australian trade officials to modify their position on the 12-year extension, according to a congressional aide who was on the trip. The Australians explained that they had no intention of changing their laws or rules in ways that could increase drug prices. Price and Kline continued pushing, according to the aide, asking for a side letter or other written guidance that the period would be extended in Australia even if it weren’t spelled out in the T.P.P. itself.

Employers find new and inventive ways to make job applicants sweat

Time was, the most nerve-wracking part of a job interview was having an answer prepared for the “What’s your biggest weakness question” and not having the faintest clue as to how to calculate “how many square feet of pizza are eaten in the U.S. each year.” Now, it involves not only having an answer to the question “What do you bench?” but then being able to prove it on the spot. Per the Journal:

Austin Harris thought his years as an investment banker had taught him all about tough job interviews—until one that started with a daybreak run though New York City’s Central Park and ended in a cramped office gym for a round of pull-ups, push-ups, squats, and burpees. It wasn’t easy keeping up with his prospective employer, a former college football player and co-founder of a company that makes nutrition bars, said Mr. Harris, 35 years old. When they started talking business, he said, “I was breathing pretty heavily and trying to recover.” In parts of the corporate world, the fitness enthusiasm of top executives is spilling from the gym to the workplace. Some sinewy C.E.O.s find exercise clears their minds as it strengthens their bodies. When hiring and networking, more are substituting spin class and protein shakes for golf and steak dinners. To some workers, the boss’s fitness craze is just crazy, especially in the high-stakes environment of job interviews. Few want to share a pungent sweat with their future boss or be judged on how much they can bench press.